Weak index pairs and the Conley index for discrete multivalued dynamical systems

Abstract

Motivated by the problem of reconstructing dynamics from samples we revisit the Conley index theory for discrete multivalued dynamical systems. We introduce a new, less restrictive definition of the isolating neighbourhood. It turns out that then the main tool for the construction of the index, i.e. the index pair, is no longer useful. In order to overcome this obstacle we use the concept of weak index pairs.